Baltimore: A Cultural Melting Pot of Sorts

View of Baltimore's Inner Harbor from Federal hill.

I've lived in many places over the course of my short life and I've come to hold great appreciation for the people and the cultures I've come across. It amazed me how people helped us when we were refugees and didn't speak local languages, and, as I got older, it led me to realize that we all share certain core qualities that make us human. So while some people's fighting was chasing us away from our homeland, other people's generosity was easing the burden of our flight.

When I came to Baltimore, I was intrigued by the city's history, its architecture, and a certain air I couldn't quite identify. I feel a certain vibe that draws me to this city, that makes me want to do my part in building it up. While I can't tell what that connection is, there are a few things I love about this city but for the sake of time I'll be focusing on the melting pot that it is.

I myself come from a culturally-varied background. Rwandan, Moldovan, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, etc. I was born in Moldova, then part of the USSR, grew up in Rwanda, and later lived in several African countries as a refugee. Due to my observant and friendly nature, I am able to absorb any culture's traditions and customs in a short time. I believe by learning about other people's way of life I'm able to understand their actions and not be offended by them. 

Looking for things to do, I found that there were many ethnic festivals hosted by the city, and I decided to attend as many as I could to learn about those particular cultures and enjoy the food and entertainment. A few things soon became apparent, however. Many of the festivals were demographically-segregated. It was hard to find non-Greeks at the Greek festival, non-blacks at the African American festival, or non-hispanics at the Cinco de Mayo festival. Even St. Patrick's Day parade, the largest parade in the State, does not represent many of the city's cultures in its diversity.

This realization first hit me when I attended the 2011 Martin Luther King, Jr. parade and noticed it was about 99% African American in both participants and revelers. King's vision was to bring people together, which has happened a lot in society, but seems not enough to attract  many of the city's residents to attend a parade in his honor. I don't know the underlying reason and I'm not leaning towards the race factor because race is not an issue based on other festivals/parades I've attended in the city. For example, there were very few African-Americans besides those of African descent at the Africa Fest festival held in the city in 2010. 

I saw first hand what can happen when people view themselves as superior and seek to impose that superiority over others through violence. Many friends, family, and neighbors were killed even though they had no choice as to which group they were born into. I, myself, was nearly killed because of this ignorance. So I want to know how best to bring people together, how to make them appreciate their differences while celebrating their similarities. That's one of the reasons I like Baltimore, a chance to learn how best to unite humanity's many subgroups. Whether unity among humans is possible is unknown to me, but I hope to keep learning by observing how the city blends and unites its many cultures. 

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Baltimore Events in Pictures: 2011

The Motorettes perform at the Baltimore Ports America New Year's Eve Spectacular in 2010. This was the last year
Ports America sponsored the event. 

Boy watches participants in the 2011 Martin Luther King, Jr. parade. This kid was particularly drawn to this group
and it made me think that maybe this is the message that drew him the most. Or maybe it was the faces of  the stick
figures. Either way, tomorrow's generation is depending on us to teach them about peace.

A shadowy figure leaves the tomb of American author Edgar Allan Poe in 2011. The Poe Toaster used to
leave a glass of cognac and roses on Poe's grave until 2009 when he failed to appear.

Dance troupe performing at the 2011 St. Patrick's Day Parade on Pratt street.

Children have a chance to look at and pet baby chicks and ducklings at the 2011 Flowermart in Mount Vernon.

Performers at the 2011 Cinco de Mayo. 

Go Ask Alice entry performs in the water section of the Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture race in 2011. Go Ask Alice
won The People's Choice award for the second year in a row.

Elvis serenades 2011 Baltimore's Best Hon, Sherry Meyers. 

People began dancing the Cha Cha slide at the African American Festival in 2011.

4th of July fireworks in 2011.

Performer in Center Plaza. The Downtown Partnership organizes events in Center Plaza during the summer including
musical performances on Wednesdays.

People dance in the rain at the Mount Vernon 1st Thursdays concert in July 2011. On this particular day performances
were cut short by rain but a few people took the opportunity to literally dance in the rain. 

Stiltwalkers at the 2011 Artscape, the largest free arts
festival in the US. 

Members of the Morgan State University perform at the annual Washington Monument lighting ceremony in 2011.
The event ushers in the holidays season in Baltimore. 

Santa high-fives a boy as he arrives at the beginning of
Fell's Point's  Olde Tyme Christmas in 2011.

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Good-Bye, Sophie

I believe all of life is connected and communicates through energy, both good and bad. Whenever I visit zoos to take pictures, I always ask the animals to give me good shots and make sure to thank them afterwards. I believe animals know and understand our intentions, and this transcends whichever language we might use to communicate with them. My mom is also like me in this manner as she tenderly addresses animals in Russian. I jokingly tell her these animals don't speak Russian, but I know they understand in their own way. Sophie, the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore's snowy owl was one of the animals I made sure to talk to on my visits.

I actually never got to take many pictures of her, as I was still studying the best way to shoot her exhibit, but I always stopped by to say hi and ask if she could give me good shot opportunities. She flew once but I was too slow to take the picture. She gave me other opportunities for good images but I always held out hope that she would fly for me again, but today the zoo announced she had passed away over the weekend. Complications from medical care.

Good-bye, Sophie, we'll get those pictures in the life after. Til then!!!

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Zoo Photography: Patience and Resilience

Every nature photographer will tell you that patience should be your most cherished and practiced virtue, and that applies to those of us who find nature within the confinements of zoos. The reason for this, I believe, is that animals can be unpredictable and could care little about your interest to photograph them.

Patience, combined with resilience, will afford you the chance to observe and learn more about the animals you want to photograph and this can bring about an improvement in the quality of your shots.

Over the past couple of months, I've been visiting local zoos about once a week. This has allowed me to know more about the animals and their behavior. However, I'd been unable to shoot a few of the animals. Since I try to avoid shots that are too zoo-ey, there are several animals that I hadn't been able to shoot...actually, there are still some that I'm trying to figure out how to shoot, but these I've shot now.

The male sitatunga normally hangs out in a corner of the exhibit that's far from the observation walkway and is right by a fence and shelters. On my last visit, he ventured out in the open and I got a few shots.

The ravens have also been hard for me to shoot, but this time one of them flew down and posed for me.

I also hadn't been able to get interesting shots of the ostriches, but one of them was scratching its neck on the ground as it fed. Either that or it was turning over the ground to expose any food that might be hidden by the dirt. Looks like he's enjoying a good nap, though.

The female polar bear was more active and even jumped in the water.

I also got a few shots of the sifakas, the lemurs, but it's not because they normally don't offer good shots. Normally, there are a lot of kids around the exhibit and I don't like to disturb them, so I just go to shoot other animals since the shooting conditions are normally less than ideal anyways. The reflections on the glass are some of the hardest to eliminate. On cold days, the exhibit's warm, humid air will also create condensation on camera gear. Overall a good place to avoid as a photographer in the winter. This time, however, I managed to get off a few shots.

The more time you spend around these animals, the more you'll get to appreciate them, even when they don't present you with good shot opportunities.

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Sunset Photography

After spending almost two days indoors doing work, I decided to take my gear and walk around Baltimore's Mount Vernon neighborhood. However, I didn't see any good opportunities to shoot, so I headed to the inner harbor and Federal hill hoping today would offer a beautiful sunset. Spring and summer sunsets are colorful in Baltimore and I haven't had an opportunity to shoot them the past few days when the days have been clear with little clouds.

I wasn't disappointed. This was one of those orange-yellow sunsets that completely inundated the cloudless sky. Since I had decided not to bring my tripod, I had to shoot at ISO 800. I also wanted to create a silhouette with the Ravens stadium so I used a 300mm lens. I underexposed by about 1/3 of a stop.

On the imageabove, I included an out-of-focus tree in the foreground to balance out the left side and add a little something to the picture.

 As I always shoot RAW, I had to adjust contrast, sharpening and noise reduction, but I didn't increase vibrance or saturation. The sky really was that orange. I then cropped the image to 1x3 aspect.

Overall, glad I headed out and worked on my sunset photography rather than sticking indoors.

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